She is such a dear old lady!  She made us so welcome and she is so entertaining.  All the remainder of the day we listened to stories of her children, looked at her pictures, and Jerrine had a lovely time with a wonderful wooden doll that they had brought with them from Germany.  Mrs. Louderer forgot to weep in recalling her childhood days and showing us her treasures.  And then our feast,—­for it was verily a feast.  We had goose and it was so delicious.  I couldn’t tell you half the good things any more than I could have eaten some of all of them.

We sat talking until far into the night, and she asked me how I was going to spend Christmas.  I told her, “Probably in being homesick.”  She said that would never do and suggested that we spend it together.  She said it was one of their special days and that the only happiness left her was in making some one else happy; so she had thought of cooking some nice things and going to as many sheep camps as she could, taking with her the good things to the poor exiles, the sheep-herders.  I liked the plan and was glad to agree, but I never dreamed I should have so lovely a time.  When the queer old wooden clock announced two we went to bed.

I left quite early the next morning with my head full of Christmas plans.  You may not know, but cattle-men and sheep-men cordially hate each other.  Mr. Stewart is a cattle-man, and so I didn’t mention my Christmas plans to him.  I saved all the butter I could spare for the sheep-herders; they never have any.  That and some jars of gooseberry jelly was all I could give them.  I cooked plenty for the people here, and two days before Christmas I had a chance to go down to Mrs. Louderer’s in a buggy, so we went.  We found her up to her ears in cooking, and such sights and smells I could never describe.  She was so glad I came early, for she needed help.  I never worked so hard in my life or had a pleasanter time.

Mrs. Louderer had sent a man out several days before to find out how many camps there were and where they were located.  There were twelve camps and that means twenty-four men.  We roasted six geese, boiled three small hams and three hens.  We had besides several meat-loaves and links of sausage.  We had twelve large loaves of the best rye bread; a small tub of doughnuts; twelve coffee-cakes, more to be called fruit-cakes, and also a quantity of little cakes with seeds, nuts, and fruit in them,—­so pretty to look at and so good to taste.  These had a thick coat of icing, some brown, some pink, some white.  I had thirteen pounds of butter and six pint jars of jelly, so we melted the jelly and poured it into twelve glasses.